Capital and country – Britain needs both

The regional towns and cities continue to be left floundering in London’s wake

In Sybil, his 1845 novel, Disraeli wrote of a country split into two nations, which he identified as the wealthy and the poor. Now the great divide is between urban and rural – or more specifically between London and the rest of the country. While the metropolis has long been more diverse, vibrant and progressive than either the provincial towns and cities or the countryside, the gulf between the two seems greater than ever.

One commentator even suggested this week, only partly in jest, that London might secede from the rest of the country and uncouple itself from the “backward shires”. His point was that it’s no longer a British city, but a global megalopolis whose attitudes do not reflect those of the country as a whole. Others, such as Boris Johnson, emphasise the City of London’s powerhouse status as the source of much of the country’s wealth.

Because the seat of government is in London, policy is invariably factored through a set of values that are not necessarily shared by people who live beyond the capital. The observation made by Nigel Farage, Ukip’s leader, that there is a metropolitan bias in politics (and much of the media) is less an insult than a statement of fact. This gulf was reflected recently in a poll conducted for the Countryside Alliance by ComRes. It showed that fewer than one in five people living in rural areas think government policies are helping them.

Two thirds thought elected politicians were more interested in the views and values of people living in big towns and cities, such as London, than those of people living in small towns, villages and remote country areas. From the disappearance of post offices to the rising cost of fuel and the reform of the planning laws, the feeling in the rural areas that they are losing out – even under a Conservative-led coalition – is palpable and was evident at the shire county elections in England earlier this month.

But the regional towns and cities, too, continue to be left floundering in London’s wake. Just consider the resistance among BBC staff to the move of some of the corporation’s output from the capital to Salford. The last government’s efforts to move 10 per cent of Civil Service jobs out of London proved just as unpopular.

There is nothing wrong with having such a spectacularly successful and dynamic capital city; quite the contrary. But it is developing almost into a country within a country, with an economic, cultural and political life separate from the rest of the nation. One reason given for the HS2 high-speed link to the Midlands and eventually to Manchester and Leeds is to try to rectify this imbalance. Fraser Nelson argued forcefully on these pages yesterday that this proposed investment is unaffordable and unnecessary; but we believe as a newspaper that it should go ahead.

This might disappoint many of our readers along the route in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and beyond, but on balance we believe this project is in the national interest. While we have taken a lead in questioning the Government’s free-for-all planning reforms – and emphatically do not consider critics to be the Nimbys derided by Michael Gove in a speech on Thursday – the national importance of some projects must transcend local objections.

A report from the National Audit Office this week cast doubt on the benefits of HS2 for the economies of the North. Its models necessarily rely upon statistics of past activity, however, and cannot predict the future. Similar modelling 60 years ago would probably have stopped Heathrow Airport being expanded. What HS2 shows is that we still have ambition and vision as a nation. We do not want to diminish the importance of London as an economic hub but to try to bring other cities closer to its level. Recent Government reforms to allow cities to keep their rates revenue and compete for business are a welcome effort to revive that sense of identity that they once had.

Perhaps we will always be two nations and London’s dominance can never be challenged. But this does not mean the capital’s aggressive metropolitan views should be foisted on the rest of the country. Instead of ignoring the provinces, the metropolitan elite would do well to heed what they are saying.